


Truth or Dare

by Em_Jaye



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, I Tried, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3603753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes shifted to her feet again, to the way her legs were more off the ledge than they were on and his stomach swooped at the idea of her feeling any more daring than she already was.  “Truth or dare?  What are we, six?” he asked with a grin he hoped masked his anxiety. </p><p>“What are we, ninety-six?” she countered almost immediately.</p><p>He couldn’t help but grin. “One of us is.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Did you guys see Birdman? It's amazing. It's so. SO. Amazing. And I actually hate that word, but it's perfectly used here. Anyway, this is basically what I had going through my mind while I was watching Emma Stone and Edward Norton play Truth or Dare atop the theatre. So no, it's not entirely original but...eh. Maybe you'll still like it? I hope you will.

                The Tower wasn’t the worst place to live; Steve had definitely bestowed the title of home on far less luxurious places in his past.  And since his apartment in DC had been deemed more or less unlivable and was still riddled with bullet holes, he hadn’t really been given a whole lot of other options when it came to housing.

                Generally, he was happy there.  Happy to be back in New York. Happy to have been offered a place to stay.  Happy to have a team of people he could trust, who—on a good day—he was even beginning to think of as friends. And happy especially that even though the Tower felt like home, there were still one or two places he had been able to whittle out for himself that no one else seemed to know about.  Places he could go to escape when the noise in his head grew to an unruly din, or when missions didn’t go as planned, or when he just wanted to go somewhere to be alone.  Places like the little rooftop alcove underneath the observation deck that, when the sun came in just right, made him feel like he was back on the roof of his apartment in Brooklyn.

                Where, currently, someone was sitting on the edge of the wall, kicking her feet back and forth.

                Steve stopped where he was in the doorway and frowned.

                Time to cross this off the list of places no one knew about.

                He didn’t have to squint at her outline in the fading sunlight to make out who it was. He would have recognized Dr. Foster’s assistant from a mile away.  She had very distinctive hair. 

                _Darcy,_ his brain reminded him in a voice that sounded hauntingly like Bucky’s. _Her name is Darcy._

And while he’d never actually spoken to her, he wasn’t blind enough not to have seen her around, trailing after Dr. Foster and swapping jokes with Thor and shooting Bruce encouraging, friendly smiles whenever he was around. 

                She seemed nice and a little quirky and more than once he’d wondered what it would take to be the target of one of those thousand-watt smiles she liked to bestow upon her friends.

                And right now, she seemed a little sad and a little lonely, and Steve couldn’t help but think that maybe she needed his peaceful little alcove more than he did.  He made a move to go back inside, but the door gave a tremendous squeak and startled the other occupant and sent his heart rocketing into his throat at the thought of her falling.

                It was a bit of an overreaction, of course.  She only jumped for a moment and turned over her shoulder to greet him with a look of surprise.  “Captain Rogers,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes.  “You should wear a bell or something.”

                He felt himself smile. “Tried it once,” he joked lamely. “Didn’t test well in the field.”

                To his surprise, she laughed and her smile turned genuine.  “That’s cute,” she commented and turned back to staring at the streaks of orange and gold that were painting the Manhattan skyline.  He took it as an invitation to stay and let the door swing shut behind him as he made his way over to the ledge where she was still precariously perched.

                Steve leaned against the cool concrete retaining wall and tried not to notice the way the sunset was bringing out the red tones in her hair, or the way the light silhouetted her face and made him far too interested in the shape of her nose and the outline of her plump lips.  He turned his gaze back to the buildings and the people below.  “Bad day?” he asked, finally, unable to keep quiet for any longer.

                She blinked. “What?”

                “Well, it seems like the obvious question when you find a dame sitting on the edge of a rooftop…dangling her feet eighty stories up.”

                When she looked over, he was surprised to see that she was smiling again.  “Did you just call me a dame?” she asked, tilting her head in such a way that her hair dropped over her shoulder and into her face.

                He coughed and looked down again. “Old habits,” he said quickly.

                “It wasn’t a bad day,” she conceded, her tone not matching her words.  “I’m just…I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing here, I guess.”

                “Here…on the roof?”

                She shook her head and cast her gaze downward.  “Here in general.”

                “I thought you were Dr. Foster’s assistant.”

                Darcy scoffed. “Yeah, when we were in New Mexico and it didn’t matter that I didn’t know what I was talking about because I was the only applicant to her internship.”

                “Ah,” he gave a tight nod. “I see.”

                “I mean,” she wet her lips unconsciously and shook her head. “It’s not like she’s going to fire me or ask me to be reassigned…I’m just…I don’t know that I’m really all that necessary to the cause anymore, y’know?”

                He knew. He knew so much it was almost crippling to think of all the things he still didn’t understand, still couldn’t rectify in his mind.  He knew he still laid awake some nights thinking of all things he was supposed to have done, the life he should have led, and feeling crushed under the weight of everything that had slipped through his hands.

                But that felt like a little much to admit to in the first conversation he’d ever had with this woman.  “What did you want to do before…”

                “BT?” she asked with a sideways grin. “Before Thor?”

                He smiled back. “Yeah.  BT.”

                “I don’t know…I guess I wanted to go to law school,” Darcy shrugged with a frown. “Or maybe the police academy.  Something like that.”

                “Well,” he reasoned out her options with tilt of his head. “Sounds to me like you were going to end up as one of the good guys no matter what.”

                She scoffed again. “Not exactly on the same level as you and the rest of the A-Team, there, Cap.”

                He could hear it in her voice that she believed that; that she wouldn’t listen to him if he tried to tell her otherwise. 

                “So where is Darcy Lewis from, anyway?” he asked, deciding on a topic he hoped would have a safer trajectory.

                “She’s from Oregon,” she said, accepting the switch in topic without missing a beat.

                “Oregon,” he raised his eyebrows and glanced back out onto the glittering, golden city.  “You’re a long way from home.”

                “So are you,” she said, taking him by surprise.  When he looked up, she was studying the side of his face, looking almost sad while she catalogued his features.  It wasn’t until their eyes locked that she blushed and looked away.  “Sorry,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “That was stupid.  I don’t know why I said that.”

                He shrugged and looked back over the city he used to know like the back of his hand.  _That used to be Newspaper Row,_ he thought, sweeping his eyes down the next block. _Buck and I used to buy popcorn balls from that Baby Gap,_ he could have said out loud. _It used to be a drug store._

“You’re not wrong,” he said after a long moment of contemplative silence.

                Darcy cleared her throat and kicked her feet back and forth nervously for a moment.  “Play a game with me,” she said suddenly, making him stand up straighter with surprise.

                “A game?” he repeated with his eyebrows raised high.

                “Sure,” she shrugged good naturedly, willing away their almost-too-intimate conversation with an easy smile.  “Truth or dare?”

                His eyes shifted to her feet again, to the way her legs were more off the ledge than they were on and his stomach swooped at the idea of her feeling any more daring than she already was.  “Truth or dare?  What are we, six?” he asked with a grin he hoped masked his anxiety.

                “What are we, ninety-six?” she countered almost immediately.

                He couldn’t help but grin. “One of us is.”

                Darcy covered her mouth and let out a little laugh. “Oh my God. I kind of walked into that one, didn’t I?”

                “It’s not a line I get to use very often,” Steve admitted with a shrug before he relented with a sigh.  “Fine, you go first.”

                She grinned. “Truth or dare?”

                “Truth,” he said and punctuated his choice with a definitive nod.

                Darcy shook her head. “So predictable.”

                “C’mon, the truth is anything but predictable,” he defended himself.

                She took a deep, steadying inhale and studied him for another moment.  “Are you a virgin?”

                His laugh took him by such surprise he almost snorted.  “Really?” he asked.  “ _That’s_ the question that you couldn’t wait to ask?”

                “You’re deflecting!” she accused, pointing her finger at him.  “Answer!”

                “No,” he said emphatically.  “I’m not a virgin.  I know what Tony likes to insinuate but—”

                “Well, Tony and the rest of the internet,” Darcy interrupted, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully.

                He rolled his eyes. “But the answer to your question is no, I’m not.”

                “Glad we got that out of the way,” she said, sounding genuinely relieved.  “When’d you lose it, anyway?”

                “That’s two questions,” he reminded her with a look.

                “Damnit,” she snapped her fingers.  “Fine.  Your turn.”

                “Truth or dare?”

                “Dare,” she answered quickly.

                Steve grinned at her eager answer.  “I _dare_ you to come join me on this side of the ledge,” he motioned for her to get down. 

                She pouted. “That’s an incredibly lame dare.”

                “I would feel _infinitely_ more comfortable playing this game if you weren’t sitting on the edge of the tallest building in New York,” he beckoned with his hands.  “C’mon, please?”

                Darcy’s rolling eyes accompanied her sigh as she carefully swung herself around and hopped down from the wall.  She raised her eyebrows and gave a little twirl.  “Happy?”

                He found his smile would not be dimmed.  “Yep.”

                “Good,” she leaned her elbows on the ledge and glanced sideways at him.  “Truth or dare?”

                It was his turn to sigh. “Truth.”

                “Did you lose your virginity before or after you became Captain America?”

                “Before,” he said, giving her a look.  “Can we leave it at that?”

                Darcy grinned. “I don’t know why, but that makes me really happy.”

                He chuckled. “Well then my work here is done.”

                “And yes, I’ll stop asking about it,” she added.  “But seriously, thank you for that information.  It actually makes all the internet jokes even funnier.”

                “Truth or dare?” Steve asked, enjoying just a little too much how her eyes laughed at the same time her mouth did. 

                “Dare.”

                “I dare you to tell me your favorite Captain America joke.”

                Darcy’s jaw dropped as her eyes went wide.  “You can’t be serious.”

                He shrugged unapologetically. “You’re the one who keeps choosing dare,” he reminded.

                She pursed her lips and blew out a breath through her nose.  “Okay, fine.” She cleared her throat  and thought for a minute. “Did you know that a bald eagle is born every time Captain America has sex?”

                Steve pursed his lips, trying to contain his smirk. “Really?”

                “Yeah,” she paused and tried to bite back her own smile. “That’s why they’re almost extinct.”

                He laughed before he could stop himself.  A real, deep laugh that felt like it had waited far too long to be let out. “That’s…actually pretty funny.”

                Darcy looked proud of herself.  “Yeah, it’s one of the better ones.”  His phone buzzed in his pocket before he could try to anticipate what she might ask him next.  “Uh-oh,” she said, giving his hip a critical sideways glance.  “Time to save the world?”

                Steve frowned as he removed the phone and checked the screen.  _Pick up on the roof in five minutes,_ Natasha had texted him. _Sorry to wreck your game, Cap._ _J_

“Something like that,” he said as he typed out his usual response.  _K._

“Well,” Darcy pushed herself away from the wall and smiled up at him. “Thanks for playing, Cap.” 

                He grinned back down at her. “Anytime, Darcy.”

                She looked at him for a long, pleasant moment before she tucked her hair behind her ear.  “Be safe out there…and uh,” she bit her lip. “You oughtta do that more often.”

                He felt his brow crinkle in confusion.  “Be careful?  Or play truth or dare?”

                Darcy had made her way back over to the door and shot him another look over her shoulder.  “Smile,” she said.  “It’s a good look for you.”

                She was gone before he could respond and was almost immediately replaced by Natasha, popping her head around the door.  “Let’s roll, Cap.”

                He blinked and felt his face set back into its usual stern, ready-for-action expression. “How’d you know I was up here?” he asked, following her up the stairs to the rooftop landing pad.

                Natasha glanced back at him with a smirk. “Everyone knows you come up here,” she said with a shake of her head.  “Who do you think told Darcy where she might run into you?”

                “You did?” he asked, and then, “Wait, Darcy wanted to run into me?”

                “Focus, Cap,” Natasha said, unable to conceal her smile for just a moment.  “Head in the game.”

 

                Steve did focus, and he did get his head in the game, and he stopped thinking about Darcy. Almost.

                He just decided that the next time she asked him, he might just feel brave enough to say “Dare.”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, guess this is going to be a 3-parter too. Hope you enjoy the 2nd installment (yep, more stuff from Birdman) and let me know what you think should happen in the conclusion. I just might work it in :) 
> 
> Lots of love,  
> MJ

               "Truth or dare?" Steve asked, leaning his elbows on the edge of the wall.  Darcy had found them a different spot this time, another carved out little alcove that overlooked one of the R&D open-air gardens.  They didn’t have any claim over this one—the tower had been designed with these little outposts for Barton to perch and keep watch—but Darcy was confident he didn’t mind sharing every once in a while.

 

                It was just enough space for one woman and one super soldier to sit hip-to-hip and dangle their feet over the ledge.  They were closer to the ground than before, but still high enough up to have a nice vantage point of the plants and scientists mingling below. 

 

                "Truth," she said, setting her empty mug to the side. 

 

                He raised his eyebrows in surprise.  If he was counting right, this was their third time playing—a total of nineteen rounds of truth or dare asked back and forth—and given the choice, Darcy had chosen dare eighteen times in a row. 

 

                Of course, he'd still only been able to say truth, so maybe they were just creatures of habit.

 

                "Threw you off, huh?" She asked, looking proud of herself. 

 

                "You did," he admitted before he recovered quickly.  "What do you like about working with Jane?"

 

                She let out a contemplative hum. "I like the unpredictability," she said after another moment's thought.  "I like showing up for work not knowing what she's going to blow up today or if we're going to discover another hole in space or stumble upon a new universe."

 

                He smiled.  "Sounds pretty exciting."

 

                "Well," she shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, I'm glamorizing a little bit.  There are plenty of days when all I do is play Candy Crush while she stares at a board full of math equations."

 

                He laughed again and watched her tuck her hair behind her ears.  "Your turn," he prompted unnecessarily. 

 

                "Truth or dare?"

 

                "Truth."

 

                "If you weren't Captain America, what would you do?"

 

                Steve's brow folded.  "You mean, if I'd never met Dr. Erskine?"

 

                "Yeah.  What were you going to do before the war?"

 

                He pursed his lips together and thought hard.  It wasn't that he couldn't remember life before Pearl Harbor or what he'd been doing with his life when he was twenty-one, but it was difficult to put into words how the war had changed everything.  Darcy's generation wasn't born with the almost-mindless patriotism that he and his fellow soldiers had possessed. 

 

                They'd seen too much, been too disillusioned to throw themselves in blindly like everyone had done in '41.  He worried if he tried to explain how much being accepted into the army had meant to him, she might lump him in with the warped, right-wing fanaticism that had taken over the word ‘patriotism’ in the last few decades. 

                 
                “I was a cartoonist,” he said, breaking through his own thoughts with the simple, unimpressive truth.

  
  
                Darcy raised her eyebrows.  “Seriously?”

  
  
                He nodded. “Yep.  I drew the political cartoons for the paper.”

 

                “Get out,” she smiled sideways at him before her expression turned curious.  “Do you still draw?”

  
  
                “Sure,” he answered easily. “Whenever I have the time.”

 

                “Can I see some of your drawings?”

 

                Steve made a sound of apprehension.  “They’re not really…”

 

                “C’mon,” she nudged him in the arm.  “I dare you to show me some of your drawings,” she said, looking victorious at her rephrasing. 

 

                He laughed.  “First of all, that’s about three questions in one—don’t think I wasn’t counting,” he gave her his best disappointed glare. “And you can’t dare me to do something when I didn’t pick dare.”

               

                She let out a little huff.  “You’re such a rule-follower.”

               

                He laughed again.  “I have a long list of people who would disagree with you.”  Darcy pushed back her hair and gave him the expectant look he’d grown familiar with.  “Truth or dare.”

 

                “Dare.”

               

                Steve peered over the edge of their little hideout and considered his options. “Stark’s going to walk right underneath you in about a minute…” he said, watching as Tony made his way back out into the garden.

               

                Darcy looked down in the same direction. “Yeah…”

               

                He waited another moment, waffling on whether or not he wanted to go through with his next dare.  But then he remembered how his phone was set to play _America—Fuck Yeah!_ every time he received a call. And that he now had a Tinder account he couldn’t seem to delete, no matter how many times he tried. “Spit on him.”

               

                She looked appalled. “ _What?”_

“Truth is looking better and better every round, isn’t it?” he asked smugly, pleased that Tony hadn’t moved.

 

                She gave a cavernous sigh.  “I can’t believe I’m doing this…” she said under her breath as she moved her cheeks for a  moment before she puckered her lips and let a bead of saliva fall past her feet and drop straight down where it landed squarely on the back of Tony’s neck. Immediately, she tucked in her limbs and motioned for him to shrink back away from the edge with her.

 

                “What the…” Tony’s voice carried up to where they were hiding.  “Goddammit, Barton—”

 

                Darcy’s nose wrinkled when she laughed.  She had pulled him back with her; his back was flat against the wall, her knees dug into his ribs and she’d clamped a hand over her mouth to smother her giggles.  Steve was close enough to smell the floral shampoo she used, the hint of coffee that was still clinging to her lips.  “I can’t believe you made me do that,” she hissed in a whisper.

               

                He couldn’t help his own smile. “I really didn’t expect you to go for it.”

               

                She hooked him with a defiant look.  “Darcy Lewis never turns down a dare,” she reminded, still keeping her voice low.

               

                Her lips were distractingly close.  Full and bitten and really, really close to his.  He swallowed hard.  “I’ll uh,” he glanced down before he met her eyes again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

                She studied him for what felt like a long minute before she got a serious look on her face. “Truth or dare.”

               

                _Dare,_ it was Bucky’s voice in his head again.  Bucky, who would have leaned in and kissed Darcy by now. Bucky, who, wherever he was, would have been bashing his head against the wall at his friend’s cowardice. “Truth.”

               

                Her teeth pressed down into her bottom lip. “Do you want to kiss me?”

               

                He felt the tops of his ears go red as he opened his mouth and closed it again before he forced himself to answer.  “No.”

 

                It was, absolutely, without a doubt, the worst answer he could have given. 

 

                Almost immediately, her body language changed, she stiffened and pulled herself back, away from where she’d been half-curled into him.  She blinked. “Oh,” she said, her lips pressing into a pout that looked more than a little confused.

 

                Steve opened his mouth to retract his statement, but the words were stuck on the tip of his tongue.  He hadn’t meant it to sound so cold, so heartless and disinterested.  He gave himself a moment, scrambling for something to say to break the awkward silence into which he’d just submerged them. He was waiting for her to ask him why, to demand the explanation that she deserved.

               

                But if she was planning on it, she was going to wait for her next turn.  But her next turn never came, because that time, it was her phone that went off. 

               

                It was a series of increasingly frantic texts from Jane that took her attention—and the rest of her—away from him.  Her lips stayed pouted as the line between her eyebrows appeared.  “Well, Cap,” she made a few quick taps on the screen with her thumbs before she tucked her phone into her back pocket and looked up. “Looks like I’m off to save the world this time.”  If he hadn’t been paying such close attention before he might have thought the rejection hadn’t taken root in her mind; that she had fluffed off his refusal of a kiss without a second thought.

               

                But he had been paying close attention.  And he could see that he’d hurt her feelings.

 

                “Darcy, I—”

 

                “It’s your turn next time,” she said, cutting him off breezily as she gathered her coffee mug and got to her feet.  “Don’t let me forget.  I’ll see you later.”

 

                She was gone before he could utter another word, leaving him alone and feeling like a grade-A asshole with a knot in his stomach.

 

                Even spitting on Tony a second time didn’t make him feel any better. 


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I borrowed for this chapter: a touch of Birdman, a dash of Angel, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. It's all in good fun. No lawsuits please. Thanks for everyone who has been so wonderful and supportive of my journeying into this fandom. You've made it a lot of fun. Hope you enjoy the ending!

 

He told himself she wasn’t avoiding him.  He told himself that not seeing her for three weeks didn’t have anything to do with how he’d blundered their last interaction.  Or much to do.  He told himself it didn’t have _much_ to do with it.

                Okay, he had stopped telling himself that after four days.  Four days of delusion, four days of waiting for her to show up in any number of the nooks he knew she knew about, four days of telling himself he hadn’t screwed every up.

                But he hadn’t seen her in three weeks.  So that was _seventeen_ days of dealing with reality.  The reality that she had offered him a chance to kiss her, a chance to explore the swooping and flipping in his stomach, a chance at something real and normal, and he’d blown it.

                “Okay,” Natasha huffed as she landed a solid hook to his right side.  She dropped her hands from her fighter’s stance and spit out her mouth guard.  “Out with it.”

                He looked up, confused and watched her wipe the sweat from her brow.  “Out with what?”

                “Out with whatever has you moping around like a kid who lost his puppy,” she said, her eyebrows raised expectantly.

                Steve felt his shoulders hunch as he fought the urge to cross his arms over his chest. “Nothing,” he said with a shrug he could tell didn’t come close to convincing.  “Nothing’s…wrong.”

                “Oh, really?” Natasha gave him a look.  “Then why do I feel like I’m the only one who showed up to this sparring match?”

                “I’m here,” he said without any enthusiasm.  “I showed—”

                “Steve, I’ve been kicking your ass all morning,” she reminded him. “Which, y’know, isn’t unheard of,” she paused and allowed him to roll his eyes with a smile. “But usually you give me something to work with.  At this point, I think Dum-E could’ve given me a better workout.”

                “Sorry,” he sighed and raked a hand through his hair.  “I guess I’m a little distracted.”

                “Yeah,” it was Natasha’s turn to roll her eyes. “I know.”  She turned away from him and ducked under the ropes, hopping down from the canvas in one fluid movement.  “Come on,” she said over her shoulder.  “I’m not going back in that ring with you until you can make it worth my while.”

                They ended up drinking carrot smoothies from the juice bar across the street and wandering half a block before Natasha elbowed him.  “This ain’t a vacation, Rogers,” she said, giving him a stern look. “I want to get back to work.  What’s wrong?”

                Steve took a deep breath. “Okay,” he agreed begrudgingly.  “You know how, a few weeks ago, you said Darcy was looking for a way to run into me?”

                “Yes.”

                “Okay, well, she _did_ run into me and we started…”

                “Being adorable and hiding away together to play truth or dare?”

                Steve sighed again.  “If you already know everything that goes on in the tower, why am I going through this?”

                “I only act like I know everything,” she reminded him with another jab to his ribcage.  “I don’t know what happened to make you so mopey and depressed…or why she’s avoiding everyone like the plague and just hiding out in the lab with Jane all the time.”

                Steve’s shoulders dropped.  “So she _is_ avoiding me.”

                “Obviously.”

                He let a moment of heavy silence shuffle along with them before he scrubbed a hand over  his face and blew out a deep breath. “I think I really messed up.”

                “Oh, c’mon,” Natasha chewed thoughtfully on her pink straw. “I’m sure you’re making it out to be worse than it is.  What happened?”

                “The last time we were playing truth or dare,” he began with that heavy, leaden feeling lining his stomach. “We were laughing and we ended up sitting really close together and it was all hair and lips and—”

                “Amazing breasts?” she filled in helpfully before she shrugged at the look he was giving her. “We’ve _all_ noticed, Steve. It’s perfectly okay.”

                “ _Anyway,_ ” he continued, hoping his cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “She was sitting really close to me and I picked truth and she asked me if I wanted to kiss her and I said no.”

                Natasha’s expression had gone from fondly exasperated to hopeful and excited to stormy and dangerous in a matter of seconds.  “You said what?”

                “I…” he shook his head. “I said no. I thought—”

                “You _idiot_!” she exclaimed, whacking him hard with her free hand, punctuating each new word with a blow to his arm.  “You total idiot.  You didn’t think at all!  What’s _wrong_ with you?!”

                “Ow!” he cried, more from annoyance than from pain.  “Stop hitting me!”

                “I can’t believe you! Sweet, lovely Darcy—who couldn’t be more your type if you dressed her up in uniform and gave her a time machine back to the forties—offers her sassy little heart to you on a platter and you _smash it with your big stupid hands?!”_

“Thanks for the recap, Nat,” he said dryly. “I was there.”

                “What did she say after that?  Did she punch you in the face? I hope she punched you in the face.”

                “She didn’t punch me in the face,” he sighed. “She got a text from Jane and then she left.”

                “And that was it?” his companion crossed her arms over her chest. “That was all that happened?  You didn’t chase her down and sweep her off her feet and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe?”

                Steve rubbed at the back of his neck.  “That’s…not really my thing…”

                “Yeah and at this rate it’s never going to be,” she sighed and took a minute, visibly collecting herself.  She tossed her empty cup in the nearest trash can and pushed back her hair.  “Look, you like her, don’t you?”

                He nodded morosely.  “Yeah.  I do.”

                “Then what the hell are you doing?”

                “I just…” he stopped and scraped his thumb over his eyebrow.  “I don’t know.  I can’t just forget what happened the last time I fell—” Steve stopped himself again.  “She’s a really good person and she’s beautiful and smart and really funny and what am I supposed to offer her?  A relationship where there’s a fifty-fifty chance I may not come back every time I go to work?”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know, Nat. Maybe people like us don’t get to—”

                Natasha stopped walking.  She turned and faced him and put a hand to his chest. “Steve,” the corner of her mouth turned up in a sad little smirk. “There _are_ no people like us.”

                “Yeah,” he let out a dry, joyless chuckle. “I guess you’re right.”

                “I _am_ right,” she insisted.  “You’re a good person, Steve.  You’re a good person who has somehow convinced himself that he doesn’t deserve to be happy.” She poked his chest. “You’re allowed to want normal things.  And you’re allowed to go after what’s going to make you happy.”

                Steve smiled.  “Thanks.”

                Her gaze turned dangerous.  “Don’t think we’re going to hug,” she warned him, raising her point from his chest to his face.

                His laugh was real this time, genuine. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

                “Good,” she gave a decisive nod. “We’re going to go back to the gym now,” she said, turning them back in the direction of the tower. “And then after that, you’re going to take a shower and go find Darcy.”

                Steve gave her a sideways look. “You don’t think I’ve completely ruined my chances with her?”

                Natasha gave this a serious thought. “I think you’ve done some damage,” she conceded. “But no harm ever came from a heartfelt apology.”

                Steve smiled and found himself wishing that Natasha was the hugging type.

 

***

 

                All told, Avengers Tower had been redesigned with thirty-eight lookouts and perches for Barton.  So that made thirty-eight nooks and crannies that Darcy _wasn’t_ hiding in, nor was she in the lab with Jane—who had eyed him so murderously he almost felt like he should be apologizing to _her_ —or helping Bruce with anything, or in the community kitchen or living room or…anywhere, it turned out

                Steve spent the entire day scouring the tower, riding the elevator up and down, trying to act as casual as he could while working toward completing his mission.  He had talked himself up all morning and afternoon, trying to stay positive that this wouldn’t be the most uncomfortable conversation he’d ever had with a woman, trying to assure himself that she had to be _somewhere_ , after all.

                But that was before hours of unsuccessful searching.  Steve was tired and depressed and hopeless and sick of the music Tony had programmed to play whenever he was in the elevator.

                There was only so many times a man could hear about how Lee Greenwood was Proud to be an American before he just decided to take the stairs. 

                The stairs where Darcy Lewis was curled in a corner between the forty-fifth and forth-sixth floor, reading a book and drinking a coffee.

                Steve stopped short and almost considered turning around before Natasha’s pep talk echoed back in his ears and forced him to be brave and to carry on.  He managed to get only a few steps away from her before she looked up, startled.

                “I believe we talked about getting you a bell,” she said, straightening her glasses and placing a hand to her heart.  “Yeesh.”

                He gave her what he hoped was an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he said, not yet feeling welcome enough to move any closer. “I figured you heard me.”

                Darcy held up the book in her lap and shook her head. “I was in the zone,” she said. “That Danielewski knows what he’s doing.”

                “What are you doing here?” he asked finally, unable to quell the curiosity anymore.

                “Oh, my apartment’s being fumigated,” she said with a wave of her hand as if it were no big deal.  “I mean, it probably doesn’t need it.  But I found two spiders in less than a week and I kind of panicked.”

                “You’re not…” he blinked and looked around the stairwell.  Though well-lit and centrally heated, it wasn’t the most comfortable of accommodations. “You’re not staying _here_ , are you?”

                To his surprise, she actually laughed.  “No, no of course not. I’m staying with Jane.  I just came here to read because it’s quieter.”

                “Oh.”  That made much more sense. In a Darcy sort of way.  “Well, I uh…”

                “Did you need something?”

                He hated that they were being so nice to each other—so formal—like she didn’t know that he had slept with a stuffed teddy bear named Major until he was eleven , he like didn’t know she could tap dance or touch the tip of her nose with her tongue. Steve let out another deep sigh and dove in. “Are you avoiding me?”

                Darcy blinked her large blue eyes at him twice.  “Well…” she looked down and dog-earred her page before she closed the book.  “Yes,” she said finally, looking back up at him.  “I am.”

                He thought it might feel better to hear it from her, but he was wrong. “Oh.”

                “You really hurt my feelings, Steve,” she said, her voice was small, but when he looked up, she was looking right at him. “Like, a lot.” Her lips pouted into a thoughtful frown before she continued. “Which, okay, probably wasn’t your fault.  I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time I read the signals wrong and thought someone was into me when he wasn’t but I really thought that you—”

                “I did!” he interrupted, taking a step closer to her.  “I do, I mean.  I still do.  You didn’t read anything wrong—you didn’t do anything wrong at all, Darcy.”

                She frowned again and finally got to her feet, pushing her glasses up again as she looked up at him with a line of confusion between her eyebrows. “Well then why...”

                He took a deep breath.  “Look, Darcy, I like you.  I _really_ like you,” he felt a little better saying the words out loud, but her look of confusion hadn’t gone away yet.  “You’re smart and you’re funny and you’re gorgeous and I’d be crazy not to want to kiss you.”

                “Yeah,” Darcy’s frown had grown a little less severe.  “You would be.”

                He felt himself smile for a moment before he continued.  “But I have this habit of…dying or almost dying and leaving the people that I love and you don’t deserve that.  You deserve something…normal and stable and… It’s selfish of me to think that just because I like you means that you’d want to be with someone who leaves all the time to…save the world,” he finished lamely.  Because it really did sound stupid when he had to say it out loud.

                Darcy’s brow furrowed.  “Steve, my boss is dating the God of Thunder,” she said plainly.  “The guy I do yoga with occasionally morphs into an unstoppable green rage monster and the guy who signs my paycheck has a heart that is powered by an _element_ that he _invented_ himself.”  She gave him a look.  “I left normal behind when I tased a Norse god, okay?”  The corner of her lips twitched into the smallest of smiles.  “And as far as excuses for missing a movie night goes, saving the world doesn’t suck.”

                There was still a part of him that was scared, that was clinging to all the reasons it shouldn’t be allowed to be easy.  “Yeah, but—” his mouth stopped moving as Darcy’s palm clapped over it.

                “Do you like me?  Yes or no,” she demanded, unaware that the smell of her perfume was starting to make his head fuzzy, that the spark in her blue eyes was downright intoxicating.  He nodded.  “Really?”  He nodded again.  “Not just as a friend?”  Steve shook his head obediently.  Darcy removed her hand.  “Good,” she nodded again.  “Because I like you too.”

                He couldn’t control his smile that time.  “Okay, then.”  An idea occurred to him.  “Truth or dare?”

                Darcy smiled back.  “Dare.”

                “I dare you to stop hanging out in the stairwell and let me spend some time with you.”

                “Accepted.”  She dropped her book into her purse and took the hand that was offered her.  They had reached the next level when she stopped at the door.  “Truth or dare?”

                Steve grinned.  “Truth.”

                “No,” she shook her head.  “Truth or dare?”

                “Truth,” he insisted.

                She laughed.  “Wrong answer,” she flattened her back against the wall and pinched a handful of his shirt, tugging him closer until he could hear her whisper,  “Truth or dare?”

                Steve brought a hand up to hold her cheek and ran his thumb along the line of her jaw.  He dropped his head to kiss her, pausing for just a moment to breathe his answer against her lips.  “Dare.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have another idea for a multi-chapter, more serious Darcy/Steve story in the works. Looking for a beta to hold my hand and be a Darcyland friendship. Anyone interested?


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